Yasmin Qureshi, Labour MP, Criticised For Gaza Holocaust Comparison

Yasmin Qureshi has apologised for any offence caused: “The debate was about the plight of the Palestinian people and in no way did I mean to equate events in Gaza with the Holocaust. I apologise for any offence caused. I am also personally hurt if people thought I meant this.

“As someone who has visited the crematoria and gas chambers of Auschwitz I know the Holocaust was the most brutal act of genocide of the 20th Century and no-one should seek to underestimate its impact.”

The Labour Party has stood by comments made by MP Yasmin Qureshi made in the House of Commons earlier this week, in which she appeared to equate the sufferings of the Palestinians to the Holocaust.

"Qureshi appears to be comparing the situation in Gaza with the mechanised and industrial extermination of an entire people. I’m afraid that however strong your feelings are on the undoubted injustices that the people of Gaza have faced, they are not seeing anything comparable to the holocaust," he blogged.

A Labour party spokesman said that the "remarks were taken completely out of context", despite the official transcript having appeared on Hansad.

"Yasmin Qureshi was not equating events in Gaza with the Holocaust," the spokesman said.

"As an MP who has visited Auschwitz and has campaigned all her life against racism and anti-Semitism she would not do so.”

On his website, after signing a memorial book to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, Ward wrote that he was "saddened that the Jews, who suffered unbelievable levels of persecution during the Holocaust, could within a few years of liberation from the death camps be inflicting atrocities on Palestinians in the new state of Israel and continue to do so on a daily basis".

After initially issuing a strong defence of his words, he subsequently apologised.